


Odds&Ends

by chockie



Series: Egotron Collection [4]
Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Crack, M/M, Other, kidgrumps AU, robogrumps AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 09:09:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11460468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chockie/pseuds/chockie
Summary: Collection of one shots again like the others, but this time from any miscellaneous AUs that got less than 3 fics/parts, crackfics, and most importantly-- the porn.





	1. What's That? Fast Forward Button?

**Author's Note:**

> FOR BEST EFFECT:  
> watch/listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNc2g4yo18 while or before reading this

With episode 15 just finished recording, Arin fiddled with the microphone, adjusting the stand to be about a foot shorter. 

“The fuck, dude?” Jon glanced at his friend with a bemused grin. 

“So,” the man said while settling himself down next to his best friend, getting comfortable- but maybe a little closer than he was used to, Jon thought. “Think back to last night. I know you were fucking smashed, or whatever, but I’m sure you remember the, ah… ‘things’ we got up to.”

Jon felt a warmth sear across his face, the rush of blood obviously visible to the eyes of his attentive friend. 

“V-vaguely. What about them?”

“Ah, well, I never got to…” Arin let himself trail off as he leaned over and flipped the microphone’s switch from STANDBY to REC.

“Finish you off,” he whispered (so silently that he was sure not even the microphone a few feet away could pick up) into Jon’s trembling ear. 

With a satisfied smirk, he threw a controller into the flustered man’s hands and thrust a finger onto the circular button at the center, the menu onscreen disappearing. The familiar rock 'n’ roll soundtrack belonging to the Crisis City stage of Sonic 06 continued from where it left off, and the game, if it could even be called a game, did much the same. 

The oh-so-familiar blue hedgehog on the screen was thrown into winds and hurtled towards a Crisis City’s trademark broken chunk of road.

“Watch out cyclone, watch out cyclone-” Jon chanted, and the two of them were immersed in the game once again. As on-screen Sonic landed safely in the center of the road chunk, what could only in the most loose of terms be called witty banter (if 'witty banter’ was equivalent to 'various monkeylike sounds’) was restored. 

“Hey, Arin,”

“Don’t fuckin’ die like you always do.”

“Remember how… once we had integrity?” A mischievous glint in Jon’s eye as he spoke told Arin enough that round two of last night’s activities would commence, and he swallowed silently.

“Um.”

He was right- the rhetorical was accompanied by a gentle stroke, almost seemingly accidental if Arin didn’t know better, to his crotch. He shivered at the contact, but was determined to win out this game. He was the one who had brought it up, after all, and it would simply be damaging to his dignity if he lost. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said, his voice perfectly even. 

Jon giggled- he had made the first move, and as a result had the upper hand, relishing it. “You’re right. I never had that shit.” With a smile, no doubt a competitive smile, he turned back towards the TV. The next move’s effectiveness, he knew, depended entirely on who had the balls to go first. 

“'Cause you- Do you wanna hit that?” Arin offered a small smile. They still had a show to get to. “I don’t think it’s attractive either, so…”

Their banter continued, both making a point of acting as if nothing had happened. The game continued, too. Unseen to Jon, so focused on the game, was Arin’s secret internal conflict. A bead of sweat trailed painstakingly slowly down his temple, and it was unbearable, ticklish, and saltwater that came out of his fucking pores was never this ticklish, so maybe the tiny droplet was boiling because of just how fucking  _hot_  his face suddenly was. He knew he wanted to  _win_  but the consequences that came with losing were just  _so, so enticing. And he couldn’t just ignore the heat from that stupid shit’s touch that was growing like wildfire from his face down his body to his…_

He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard that familiar laugh he loved and hated and  _loved_  so much. His eyes darted to the screen, watching the hedgehog fall to his god-knows-how-manyth death, then darted back to his friend, a lopsided smile on his face.

“J- J- Hand it over." 

"Ch-hand it over?”

“Let a  _pro_  play this game." 

He watched his best friend roll his eyes. "Issa  _pro_  play dis game,” and Arin knew he was mocking the way he slurred but he continued unabashed.

“When I replayed the beginning of this game because we lost all our footage and had to start over-” and he felt something warm and wet up drawn up the side of his arm and  _shit_. 

He felt the blood rush to it and Jon had been watching and looking and he had the audacity to  _laugh_ -

“I-,” and he trembled and he shook his head and tried to clear the thoughts that were clouding up. 

“I-” and Jon touched the tip quickly, just for a second, less than a second and he knew that they both felt it twitch and Jon laughed and he laughed nervously, just because of instinct and he forced himself to continue his sentence, to resist the urge to tackle Jon to the floor and shut him up with his stupid dorky nerdy wheezy laugh by mashing his own lips onto his-

“I fucking blew through this thing in like, a second.”

“What?" 

"The first half of the game.”

“Yeah-”

“The first nine episodes of Game Grumps, which- Which is what, ninety minutes?" 

"I guess.”

“I did it in like, twenty." 

"Oooooooh, you a speed runner, you a baaaaaaaaaaller, as in you played b-ball outside of the school,” and Arin couldn’t stop himself from giggling and he didn’t know it was possible to forget about a fuckin’ boner but he did and Jon kept talking in his normal voice and not the sexy voice he was ridiculously capable of and he just forgot and everything was normal.

*

“Okay, okay, okay, just- For real, don’t die because-”

“I’m fuckin'  _tryin’_  dude, it’s not easy!" 

"It’s not- this is our last life, so…”

Jon smiled, watching his friend, tongue poking out of his mouth. The older man had his gaze trained on nothing but the TV, eyes narrowed and every movement a finger or thumb made on the controller was precise yet desperate to get this stupid stage over with, only-

“Ah, jeez… These fuckin’ mach speed segments…" 

Both watched as the hedgehog flew right over the side of the bridge and it would have been clear to anyone that Arin’s face, twisting into one of fury and reflecting his title of "Grump” truly, was one that needed to be consoled. It was especially apparent to Jon, who gently laid his head on his shoulder. 

“No, Arin…” He managed to get out, before the outburst he expected came.

“What the  _fuck?!_ " 

Jon sighed with a wan smile.

"But- you would have done the same thing-” Arin started, only to be interrupted by Jon placing a finger on his lips.

“Oh, what’s that, fast forward button?" 

"Dude, no, wait-” The man basically crushing the controller in his hands started once again. 

“Ahh, shut up for a second, will you?” The look that came with the request did manage to get Arin to stop, and with one hand, Jon angled his friend’s face towards his, taking a second to admire the look of surprise on his face before he allowed his instincts to take over and roughly, tongues slipped into mouths and lips coated chins with saliva. With his other hand came the real contest and Jon forced himself to open one eye, carefully slipping it onto the crotch of his companion’s jammy pants. 

The moment contact was made, he felt Arin tear himself away from their frenzied make-out session. 

“We’re still fucking  _recording_ , w- why-  _oh, fuck-_  stop- stop touching-” and it was there Arin couldn’t speak anymore, legibility crashing into a cascade of moans, cut off every few seconds for another thorough kiss. Jon grinned as he felt the already hard mass under his palm twitch, and he took the cue to draw his tongue from the warm insides of Arin’s mouth to his cheek, then down his neck, then used both hands to expertly flick the nipples he secretly so worshiped, wrapping an index finger and thumb around the two hardening points in the loose fit shirt. Through the hickey he was giving Arin’s collarbones, he smiled. Briefly, he drew his face back to inspect the 'damage’. He heard a gasp above him at the loss of contact and the sensation of cool breath on drying spit and his smile only grew wider. 

“Check it out." 

Jon giggled at his friend’s widening eyes. 

"Jesus f _-fuckin’_ _christ._ Suzy is going to be able to see it…”

“Yeah, but you don’t really mind, do you?” Jon smirked, eyeing Arin’s cock twitch. “In fact, I might even go as far to say you  _like_  it.”

“Wh-what?!" 

"Yeah. You have a kinky-ass exhibitionist side, and I think that’s why you started this fuckin’ game in the first place. Right? I’m right.”

With every word, he drew a leisurely lick over the shirt, each time coming closer to his prize. It was tantalizing, so tempting to just give up and go down on him, but he couldn’t possibly do that, they were still recording…

_Wait a second. That’s what he likes._

His eyes devious, his smile more so, Jon brought the microphone stand closer to them, pushing the legs under the couch so that the stand itself could be as close as physically possible. He felt the hand, before gently pressing in the small of his back, now clutching in fear, nervousness,  _excitement_ , and he almost growled, he was having so much fun toying with him. 

Leaning back towards the microphone while keeping his face and eyes trained on the sitting figure in front of him, he whispered sensually.

“I’m so sorry you’re gonna have to hear this, Barry." 

In the heat of the moment, Arin felt his whole body tingling. He felt every cell on the skin of his fingers touching the fabric of Jon’s shirt, he felt the cloth of his pants straining to contain his manhood and everything was so,  _so_  sensitive and he laughed because,  _what the fuck_ , right?

And he heard that laugh too, he heard the younger man who had put him in such a compromising and vulnerable position laugh too, and then he couldn’t keep himself back anymore and he used the hand on Jon’s back to pull him closer.

 _He’s already on the fuckin’ floor, he planned this all out, holy_ fuck _…_

And before he knew it he felt his pants around his feet and felt big soft hands pushing his legs farther apart and he felt Jon’s heavy breathing on the inside of his thigh and then that heavy breathing became damp lips and they were pulling his flesh and kissing and biting and  _ffffuuuuuuck_ … and he felt his dick twitch again and off-white beaded his head and it was so hot and he needed so much more than a fucking kiss on the inside of his thigh–

Shifting forward, reaching to pull the bearded man and moving his hands down to that lovely rump, Jon was now practically sitting on his lap and it all came so naturally to him and he squeezed the handful of Jon-ass and the sound that came out of his mouth was not human. The game had begun for real, it was the boss battle, it was the final round and it felt fucking unreal. 

In a low voice, Arin heard himself mumble, between hysterical giggles, while Jon desperately ground his crotch against his thigh. 

"Dude…" 

"Mmm,” Jon mumbled back.

“You know-” and he felt the warm mass balanced on his legs shift a bit more urgently, and he heard the whimpering and the sounds grow to a crescendo and he couldn’t stop himself from moaning into Jon’s neck back a little. 

“You know- what the best part about these is?” Jon’s moans were so loud and he felt so much precum just dribbling out he couldn’t stop laughing and Jon felt sticky goop draped on the inside of his own thigh now and his shorts were riding up his legs because of how hard he kept pushing against Arin’s leg and all he could say was “oh, oh,  _dude_ -” and he couldn’t think straight at all.

“You know what the best part about these is?" 

Husky, raw, he heard Jon’s voice and his giggles that came with.

"Wh-what?”

Arin leaned in and bit his neck and chewed on the skin, making sure the hickey formed before speaking, whispering so quietly, like a soft wind blowing past but forming words, words that said “Fucking  _you_.”

He didn’t know whether the microphone could pick it up or not, but it didn’t matter, because he felt them both tighten and he or maybe Jon or maybe even both of them moaned and uttered an “oh  _fuck_ ," and he was so ready to blow but he couldn’t just yet, could he? 

_The game isn’t over yet._

He shifted, and it was hard because  _he_ was so hard but he shifted and pushed and suddenly it was Arin on top and his lover lying under him and he jumped at the opportunity to get a one-up in this crazy game of 'Who’s gonna blow their load first?’.

Jon wanted to stop him, because there was something so incredibly arousing about him in such an open position but all he could say was "W-w-waitwait I can’t see your dick, dude,” and he laughed because he didn’t even know what the fuck he was saying but at the moment he honestly couldn’t care less. 

Hasty, impatiently Arin felt the elastic of the fabric and pulled, anything to get Jon’s hard-on out of its prison faster and threw it carelessly. He felt strong hands pull off his own shirt and he shucked off the pajama pants still slung around one ankle

“Aw, fuck. Take it off…” And with his shirt gone, thick fingers began to massage his boy tits and he found himself unable to finish his already incoherent rambling. “T-take it-  _shit_ …”

Clothesless, naked and cock straining for attention,  _any_  kind of attention, Arin lowered himself closer to Jon’s chest until their bodies touched, his naked one on the still-shirted man under him. Whether with his mind’s consent, his body humped eagerly, any kind of friction he could get with his own dick and Jon’s still in its underwear causing another twitch, another sudden wave of precum. He was quite sure, at this point, that Jon’s briefs would reek of both their pre, but it was his cum that coated it most generously from the outside. Arin brought his hand to the dazed looking face in front of him and felt Jon take it, almost gladly, into his mouth. He felt teeth clamping gently down, pulling at his index finger, dragging almost sharply at his skin and he felt a wet tongue slide up and down and he  _fucking mewled_ and breathing was such a fucking strain and he just couldn’t stop panting like a fucking dog. 

“Lick me, lick me…” and he tried to pull his finger out, only coming out with a wet  _pop!_  and he drew the spit-coated finger to his own mouth, not hesitating to suck on it himself. “Lick me…" 

With his other hand, Arin pulled the briefs that kept their cocks from touching down, taking both in his hand and jacking them slowly. He shifted himself a bit closer, their bodies a bit closer, one on top of the other. 

"I just love- I just-” In their lust fuelled haze Jon could only finish his sentence with kisses, to Arin’s forehead and nose and soft face and on the lips under that soft scruff that made him so captivatingly adorable. 

Without warning, he felt the same hand that had so gently toyed with his body come down hard and fast on his ass and he bucked backwards and he had to force his body back down and when he did he speared himself right on that dick and that was when everything came crashing down and he felt his pent-up load finally letting itself go when he felt Jon balls deep in his asshole. He felt warmth fill his insides and he felt his own spunk splatter across their navels, and his vision was blurred because his eyes couldn’t be open any wider than half open. Together their moans resided, and they basked in post-orgasm bliss in silence for a moment that could have been either seconds or years. Neither had any need to communicate, but Arin felt himself succumb to gravity, slowly rolling off his lover’s body and feeling a softening cock slip out of his ass, taking some of its cum with it. 

With shaking legs and a smiling, flushed face, he laughed and stood, and Jon laughed too, and they laughed because of course he had to just fucking fall off his dick. He made his way over to their discarded clothes and, amidst laughter from the both of them, said, “On that note… Barry, use that audio however you want." 

He bent over to pick up his shirt- and maybe give Jon a good look at his asshole, with evidence of maybe a potential creampie leaking a little out and went back to the couch, grabbing the shorts and his own jammy pants from the floor. He offered the shorts with a smirk to his still hazy partner, who took a swing trying to grab the shorts… and missing. 

Both of them laughed again, and Arin used his shirt to clean off their cum, pressing gently on Jon’s crotch, then his own, holding the damp shirt to his face before wrinkling his face and chuckling. 

He sat down next to him with a huff and with a mock-angry expression, looked away, while still leaning his head on Jon’s shoulder affectionately. 

"I can’t believe I fucking  _lost,_ dude. What the fuck?”

They put on their pants, the briefs on the floor forgotten temporarily, and Jon picked up the controller. 

“I can’t- You’re just gonna-”

“Yeah, man.”

“No, no, we literally  _just_ got to second a half base-”

“Okay, we’re back.”

He sighed and laughed. 

“Pause…Wait, we gotta- do it over. Aw, fuck.”

“Rollin’ around at the speed of fuck…” Arin sang. "I hate myself, I wanna  _kill_ myselfwithatruck.“ 

Their respective personas restored, they both laughed, with a sense of relief that both of them could feel. 

 _Game over_ , Arin thought. 


	2. Exhibitionist Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> high school AU.... take that as you will

There was no need for either of them to exchange even a word, as Arin excused himself from the class. The studious boy had kept an eye out for the signal the instant his best friend stood up and started counting.

_One-mississippi_ _, two- _mississippi_ , three- _mississippi_ , four- _mississippi_ , five…_

•

The same stall that they always used, the second from the far end of the boys’ toilets on the third floors, appeared at first glance to Jon to be locked. The lock indicator slid from red to white as he approached, though, and the door opened a crack. Again, there were no speech between them as Jon took the initiative and pushed Arin onto the toilet seat, biting his lip nervously before kneeling and undoing the punk boy’s skinny jeans, licking his lips at the sight of the unseemly bulge before him.

 _A prize_ , he thought lustily. 

He tried to make himself go slowly, but it was impossible. The supposedly “studious” boy tore off his own hoodie and slung it on top of the cistern tank behind the object of his affections and hastily pulled his own shorts and boxers as fast as he could. With a strong grip (he had always been stronger than Arin, that was what made games like these so special) he fixed his hands around his partner’s wrists and pulled him upright. Silencing the questioning look he received with lips being smashed roughly on lips, he felt his eyes close in ecstasy as he felt the taller boy push back with a heated tongue and- before he could get  _too_  lost in the bliss of kissing Arin Hanson- positioned himself with his back against the flimsy stall door and his feet against the back of the wall. 

Trembling not in trepidation but excitement, nothing but  _need_ , he impaled himself on his best friend’s cock without hesitating. He felt himself open up, accepting the pulsing gift of joy that sliced his ass in half but made him feel  _so, so good_  at the same time easily and readily as he ever had before. He was used to being used, but this time he was taking control- even if he was the one taking it up the butt. 

Their kiss finally broke off, and Jon’s eyes opened to see Arin’s half lidded once, his eyes rolling upwards, clearly enjoying his depravity, his absolute lack of holding himself back. He had been on edge the entire day, not having jacked off in the morning before school, and when he saw the signal he had to cross his legs before anybody could see. Having been aroused on the entire way the bathrooms had made his skin so sensitive and every touch more sweet than it usually was-

_Maybe I should stop jacking off in the morning if this is what it’s like._

He bit back a moan but smiled at the thought. 

_That would mean that I’d have to get Arin to comply with me banging him every single day._

He felt his cock twitch, jerk a little as he slid up and down to the best of his abilities with no feet on the floor. 

 _Weighing out the pros and cons…_ He watched Arin lean in and bite his neck and he couldn’t resist a yelp, he couldn’t control it.  _I don’t think either of us would mind._

He felt his eyes shut tight and heard himself make a drawn out, girlish moan as he felt his cock twitch again and precum eke out his dick, straining against and staining the crotch of his boxers. Arin, who had been prior to that letting his arms dangle by his sides, noted the tent with the steadily growing wet spot at its tip and with shakey hands wrapped a hand around in, thumbing the tip then dragging his hand down. Back up, thumb the tip, and drag down. It was hard to keep up the motions, though, as he watched his friend with an uncharacteristic display of agility pushed himself towards the top of the walls on either side of them and grasped at the edges, using them as leverage to make his desperate thrusting ever deeper. He had been going balls deep earlier, but it was only now that there were audible slaps from Jon pushing himself down and his pants were dangling from one trouser leg off his foot. 

Both of them were panting, but it was Jon who couldn’t stop the cries, the moans, the grunts, that came every time he succumbed to gravity. With a red face and his hair falling in sweaty splits framing that flushed complexion, Arin leaned in close once again and felt his partner tense up, wondering if the punk was going to bite him again or give him a hickey, perhaps?- and whispered into his ear huskily and it gave Jon chills that made the hair on his cold sweaty arms stand on end. 

“You know, for a studious boy, you’re pretty f@!king desperate to get me off." 

He couldn’t say anything back, of course, too busy working himself on Arin’s dick and feeling his asshole stretch as he slid himself down then close as he came off, then before tightening again being forced open again and he could barely bring himself to look at the owner of this piece of delicious man-meat.

It was just then that they both heard the door open, and Jon squealed. He froze with himself stretched around the base of Arin’s cock, feeling his cleanly shaven crotch pressing against the skin of his ass and heard the stranger with them freeze too. 

"I-is someone there…?”

And instantly Jon recognized the voice as his math tutor’s and if it was even possible, he became more flustered and even more flushed. His friend watched him with amusement (albeit a bit of desperate amusement with Jon’s boypussy twitching around his cock) and his smile became wider as he realized what had happened. 

It became a game of silence, a game of playing along. A game that- and this was indeed the best part for Arin, throwing an angle of sadism onto his smile- pushed Jon to the very limits of his body. 

“H-hello, Mr. Topp…”

“Jon?” his math tutor called with a bit of a waver in his voice. At the same time, with a wicked grin, it was Arin’s turn to pull out and then thrust, going as deep as he could. 

“Yeah, uh, it’s- it’s me, and uu _nnh_ -“

"Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah… A-ah!”

“You sound like, uh, you’re in a lot of pain there…”

“I- I-  _oh, jeez-_ I have diarrhea!” Jon forced out as Arin used his free hand to work its way up under Jon’s t-shirt to twist one of his nipples and he could barely breathe, his eyes coming out of focus and rolled up towards the ceiling. 

"O-oh. Alright then. Uh… I hope you feel better, Jon.”

“Th-thanks…" 

Both of them listened to the man walk painstakingly slowly to a urinal and both of them listened to the stream, while all the while Arin was tweaking Jon’s left nipple with his other hand down his boxers alternating between fondling his balls and caressing his shaft and the impossibly uneven thrusts that were now a bit slower to avoid sound. They heard the flush, the cock stuffed up his ass twitched and his whole body twitched back in response, and he tried his hardest but couldn’t hold back a groan.

They heard the tutor stop, and Jon could almost see the guy looking around uneasily in his mind while Arin brought his head forward and started licking his nipples through his shirt. By this point, precum had soaked the entirety of the front of his boxers and the man continued to walk towards the door. 

The instant Arin heard the door close, gently, but firmly, in the way he knew Jon so loved, he suckled on a nipple- hard enough to leave a hickey- and he smiled inwardly as he felt Jon cum into his hand. The boy with the dark scruffy mane of hair sank to the floor, his breathing uneven and eyes unfocused.  _A deposit much larger than normal_ _…_  Arin thought, pulling his soaked hand out of the similarly soaked boxers and made a show of drawing his tongue up his index finger and catching the off-white goo in his mouth. He didn’t have to look at his spent partner to know that his eyes were trained on him, even after blowing his load and barely conscious, and Jon whimpered. 

"Y-you’re still hard…”

“Yeah, well… I thought you might want to finish me off.”


	3. I Just Keep Melting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> elemental grumps AU (fire kirby!jon and ice kirby!arin
> 
> some kind of vague angst happening here i think

The man plodded along the ice hallways of the castle, every step leaving a footprint puddle as he went along. The water seeped into even his own heavy duty boots, and Jon internally willed for his heat to die down, for the sake of the man he was looking for, if not his own. He was afraid that if he stood in any one place for more than a minute he would start sinking into the floor and he put more of a spring into his step and his slow walk grew into a lope. Despite his best efforts, however, nothing could stop the quiet hissing that came from the contact with his foot to the floor. He sighed, and his breath made a thick cloud of steam in front of him, impairing his vision for only a second before the chilly air made it disappear. 

 _Can a castle even be this physically big? I’ve been running for minutes now, this is ridiculous!_  Jon  _harrumph_ ed to himself and pouted, but trained his eyes on where he hoped the end of the seemingly endless corridor would be. Not a few seconds later, as luck would have it, a large towering door three times his height grew before him as he hurried closer. It loomed over him, and he stopped in front of it, hesitating- until he started slowly melting the floor and started hopping from foot to foot, in the hopes that it might slow it down. 

“Okay, take it easy, buddy, just knock on the doors and pull ‘em open, say hello, talk about the thing, do the-… the th-thing, and get the hell out of there… No problem.” He looked down and clenched his fists, taking a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut. For a brief second, every possible result of what he was about to do flashed before him, and he staggered backwards because not only did the good results appear in his mind but more importantly, the bad ones, and every single way it could possibly go wrong. Jon breathed out again, the exhalation catching in his throat, and adjusted his crown. 

_Knock knock._

Just as planned. Now for step two.

_Crrrreeeeeeeeeaaaaak- boom._

He shouldn’t have rushed it, it was too dramatic an entrance, but he couldn’t stand the painstaking slow creak, horror-cliche style. 

The solid sound of his boots hitting now carpeted floor, a surface that his temperature couldn’t do more than singe slightly. He kept his eyes trained on his feet making their way step by step, closer to  _him_. Almost as if they were moving on their own. Almost.

It seemed like it was too soon when he reached the steps indicating the throne that must have also towered before him, like the overkill doors. With a tiny tremble that only could be seen if a couple inches away, Jon raised his head. 

As it always did, his appearance made his heart skip a beat and took his breath away, if only for a moment. A moment that was stretched out for a very long time, it felt to him. 

The prince of ice sat almost casually on his throne, his legs wide apart and bent at the knees, with his feet planted firmly on the floor. His head was resting on the side of his fist and he looked almost bored. The light that shone through the tall, arched windows uniform to his sides and the beautiful stained glass that was acting as a fitting backdrop illuminated the young man, portraying him much in the same way as an artist would for a god. It reflected off the frost in his frozen hair, off the crystals in his crown, off the buttons on his gloved hand, and shone deep in the jewel of his headpiece. Every color visible to the human eye in that single, round opal at the center of his hairline. Breathtaking.

“Y-Your highness.”

Jon took the precursory kneel, falling to one knee much as knights would do. 

“State your business.” The man on the throne raised an eyebrow and eyed the kneeling one.

“I- I’ve come regarding a private matter, sir. One that, um, I think you know what I speak of.”

“What’s the matter, Jon?” Arin broke his icy facade and looked with open concern. At his friend. Lover. Savior. 

Equal. 

“I-…" 

"Spit it out, buddy. You’re not doing the ice under that carpet any favors, you know.”

The bearded man appeared to shrink before his friend’s worried eyes, and mumbled something impossible for Arin to make out. 

“Sorry, what was that? And you don’t need to kneel, you know that.”

“S-sorry… It’s just that… It’s just…” Jon took a few steps up the low staircase so they were eye to eye, his unbalanced expression becoming a level gaze and the one who was sitting felt uneasy because was that a tear or just the sunlight?

“I’m being called away, Arin.”

“Well, when will you be back? It’s not a huge deal, you know, it’s not like I can’t-”

“That’s just it. I’m not going to  _be_  back.”

“You… what?”

The prince of ice, the one infamous for his cold mask that never once cracked, never once broke, was in shock, his jaw hanging loose. 

“Y-you heard me. The first time. I- I’m not coming back, Arin. The- the tribe needs me. Nicole, she needs me.”

Arin remained silent, his face still frozen but his eyes telling all, and it broke him. It began with a sniffle, but tumbled out in an avalanche and he fell to his knees, the result of the uncertainty that had been inside him and gnawing at his part in their relationship for weeks. Too long. Jon bit his lip and tore his own eyes away, looking at anything but into Arin’s. The floor, the black burnt parts of the carpet, out the window, anything but into those desolate pinpricks but beautiful deep dark eyes that showed his broken heart. 

There was only the painful silence and the quiet sobbing from Jon, his face in his hands, for minutes. Many minutes. Jon thought it was over. Jon thought Arin would freeze him, or a part of him, or whatever in anger and he deserved it, he did. Jon believed that his little flashback moment before he opened the doors,  _before he opened the goddamn doors_ , was going to come true and Arin would be furious and Arin  _was_ furious and he couldn’t bear it and he screwed his eyes shut as tightly as they could go because no matter where he looked the afterimage of Arin’s broken eyes was burned into his retinas and he couldn’t take it and it was so hot so so hot and he could feel the carpet starting to melt too-

The touch of icy fingers, and then a palm, on his chin. Resting on his beard. It stung him, a little bit, the sheer coldness, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like for the giver. Always the one making the sacrifices. The silent sufferer. Sure, he made jokes about it, but Arin was the one who allowed himself to be the one that got hurt, the one that submitted, the one who tried his very damn hardest to make Jon happy. 

The hand lifted his chin, gently. 

“Open your eyes, Jon.”

Cold breath, cold air, on his skin, goosebumps, goosebumps, his hair stood on end and steam rising from his skin and he opened his eyes to see  _his_  beautiful face inches away from his own. There were tears in his eyes, to be sure, and his eyes… his heartbroken eyes still spoke volumes about his pain, but in them was understanding, also. 

“Listen, I-… It’s… I understand.”

“You’ve got to, man, they’re waging war on us and we need to move and get to a safe place and I don’t want to see any of my people hurt they’re still my friends, I can’t, I’m so scared, Arin, I don’t know what else to do, I’m so sorry, so so sorry, please forgive me, I hate this I don’t want to-”

But his desperate babbling was interrupted as Arin used his other hand to wipe away tears he didn’t know he was holding back that evaporated into the air the second his amazing icy fingers touched them and the hand that was tilting Jon’s head to face his stretched a finger onto his lips. 

He mouthed “it’s OK,” and his lips touched Jon’s and before he knew it he was slipping his tongue into Arin’s mouth and a bead of sweat rolled down the bridge of his nose and it was all so so hot but Arin was making it okay and Arin was making his own fears for his tribe and concern for everyone just melt away for the moment and he threw his arms around his blue furry coat and heard the hissing grow louder but he didn’t stop and Arin’s hand moved from his neck upwards to the back of his head and he felt locks of his sweaty hair spill between his slender fingers and they were both crying as they kissed. 

Their tears mingled, their frantic kissing only grew more violent and Arin pushed him onto the carpet on his back, his left arm falling to the side and his hand made contact with the ice floor and it started melting faster as he kept going and he felt his own heat rising and Arin clenching his hand as he pawed at Jon’s face roughly. 

“I can’t do it, Jon…” Arin husked out, his half lidded eyes staring into space. 

“I-  _oh_ \- can’t even…" 

"I can’t fucking… hh…”

“I- I can’t deal without you, and I  _know_  you can’t do without- m-me…”

Minutes. Hours. Neither of them knew how long they were writhing on the floor, with their final desperate goodbyes, neither of them cared.

“Arin, I… I love you.” The man in question said nothing in response, sitting down on his throne again with his head in his hands. He couldn’t bear to look. 

Jon turned. Neither of them were good with goodbyes. Perhaps this was the better way. With a brisk trot, he began his way out of the ice castle for good. 

“I love you, too, Jon. I love you too.”


	4. Robogrumps (1)

Mark IV of AR1NT67’s model, usually referred to only as just “Arin" rose from the cold steel table. The room was deserted, wires and various pieces of computer hardware scattered on the floor and strewn across the counters and tables. The only sounds he could pick up on was the distant humming of the fans built into where his heart would be and joints. A robotic voice-  _disappointing, he still hasn’t updated my internal voicebanks to sound more human at all-_  stated that he was on the way to recovering fully functional movement, currently platforming at 75%. So a speedy lope/walk, with a limp that became more noticeable if he decided to try and shoot over his capacity.

 _A crash is the last thing I need at the moment. Where is he?_  His “pupils" swiveled with a barely audible whirr, and he searched the room for any sign of his companion. Friend.

Arin helped himself up, his plated fingers making clicks and clacks on the operating table. That’s what he called it, anyway, but it was really more of a worktable for the one who created him.  _Master Barry. I hope he’s okay too._

The LED tubelights over his head flickered and a spark landed on his thigh, sitting upright as he was. He targeted the door, took in his surroundings some more. Jon was nowhere to be seen, of course.

_He must have woken up before I did._

Another whirr, and a muted click. Tinny and crackling music began to play through speakers in the lab, in old fashioned intercom speakers. The music, Arin detected, was a musical box style. Whimsical and childish, but he found it pleasing all the same. It faded away soon after, but while during its playing, he liked it, it only served now to make him feel a little jumpier than usual.

The automaton took the liberty of exhaling- or rather, pretending to. Just for fun, he always said- and took stock of his body. It appeared that Barry- as he insisted on the automatons not to use his formal title- had begun giving his shiny copper covering a shine.  _With that unideal alcohol and bleach mix, no doubt._ Arin allowed himself a wry smirk, the movement fluid and not as difficult or jerky as he remembered it to be pre-reworking.

_Must have worked on facial expression, too. I wonder why he cares so much about how human we are._

He stood up, his feet making a bit of a clang (although muted, now, thanks to the thin padding on the soles of his “feet") and he made slow steps towards the door. Much of the laboratory was fashioned with bits and pieces of furniture Barry had found in places- the door, for example, was a real antique, pulled from the rusting carcass of a submarine. Arin peered through the porthole, his ample height of 5"11 causing him to stoop just a little bit, and noted the movement of a shadow just in the corner of his vision. The constant silent humming of the fan grew louder as it spun faster, and the fingers of his left hand struggled to twist the doorknob.

“C’mon, god damn it…” He turned his attention to the knob, attempting now with both his hands to force it open. A few more seconds of strained effort, one big push with his shoulder and the door swung open outwards with a low creak. Arin almost tumbled out onto the dusty hallway, managing to keep his balance but sliding uncomfortably across the floor in the process. The floor was slippery, but he tried his best to make his way towards the shadow he might have seen earlier, the jerky steps becoming more fluid in motion as he warmed up to his new and improved hardware.

“J-Jon?” He skidded to a halt in front of a turn in the corridor. Which way had he gone?

But to his relief, there was a muffled response further down the turn to his right. It was dark, though. He had been programmed to be scared of the dark- an eccentricity Master Barry had believed would make Arin more human. And also incredibly unnecessary, Arin himself believed, but what Barry said and did was law, so there was nothing he could do about it. Both Arin and Jon had their own “dreams" and “aspirations", the terms used loosely to describe the ethereal experiences that just seemed completely out of place and strange. Barry liked to call them the “bitesize chunks of humanity".

“I’m in here, Arin. Come check this out, dude!”

“I’m-… I can’t, man. It’s too… dark.”

“Oh, right, sorry. I forgot.”

The sound of a thick door opening and hitting a wall, and a shadow grew from the darkness to reveal a bulkier bot. The finetuned version of a complementary “personality" to Arin’s, known formally as J0NT452 [Mark III] but went by simply “Jon", stretched his arms out to give Arin a hug. He was always taken aback by some of the actions that Jon would do- even if he was supposed to be, program to be,  _existed_  to be more human than he was, it still surprised him every time when he did something that just simply confused Arin. Things like hugs, displays of affection, so many  _emotions_  that were in the RGB grayscale balance (which Jon thought of it fondly as), the balance made from 3 colors that Arin only had access to. Black, 50% gray, and white. Yes, if the grayscale balance was a way to gauge their emotional receptiveness and realism as humanoid automatons, Jon would be the full scale.

And Arin felt the white that was his happiness for him, always. Something that Barry had never intended for him to feel  _for others_ , but it blossomed for Jon nevertheless. It wasn’t treated as bad, not at all- Barry made a point to encourage it. “A technological advance I never could have anticipated,“ he called it, usually coupled with a laugh that made him feel quite  ~~ _white_~~  happy as well.

They embraced, Jon more tightly than Arin did, and for a second Arin swore he could register real emotion in his eyes, but he shook it off. Without another word, they stepped into the darkness together, the taller automaton’s hand in the other’s. He felt himself being lead into another room, the temperature dropping a little bit and cooling his overheating chest. He didn’t know why he was overheating. The reassuring (???) heat-  _warmth,_  that came from their clasped hands felt good, though.

"Look, Arin. Open your eyes.” Jon chuckled (it seemed so lifelike) and squeezed, the tiny joints in both their fingers putting a little pressure and making a strained little sound. Slowly, his eyes opened, and around him, he saw jars and containers with tiny bots buzzing around inside of them. The thing that caught his attention most, though, were the single LED lights that each one had. Blinking lights of every color inside the jars created soft splashes of light in the dark room, and he felt soothed (????).

“Feeling better now?” In the dimness of the light from the homing bots in the jars, Arin noticed Jon look at him. His fan started speeding up again, he could feel the artificial cortex of his AI slowly going into overdrive, the copper plating starting to overheat again and the heat spread. Oh, did the heat spread.


	5. Robogrumps (2): Clockwork Chaos

Arin sat up with a start. The room was dark. It was a-

_A dream._

_/drēm/- “dream”: a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep._

_  
_“I don’t dream.”

He realized the use of the contraction in his speech and corrected himself.

“I do not dream.”

At least, not he. His partner, the one who had starred alongside him in the visions he had experienced previously, the one he had held hands with, and watched the homing bots with, Jon, certainly could…

It was only then when the automaton realized that his fans were not operating and the room was indeed eerily silent. A solitary lightbulb above him where long LED tubelights used to be flickered uncertainly, then fizzled out once more. It was in this darkness that Arin attempted to stand, get off the cold operating table that he couldn’t actually feel because his own body was so overcome with coldness. His knee joints made a worrying  _clunk_ ,  _whirr, click_  as they buckled and his feeble body collapsed. In a pile of metal parts, he hit the ground, causing the dusty wires on the ground to scatter away from him. The tiny just-in-case battery that had been supporting his minimal movement died, and the light in Arin’s eyes died with it. His last movement was his left index finger tapping weakly on the dirty tiled floor, and his vision went black.

.

Jon found himself taking careful steps towards where he remembered Arin’s room was supposed to be, but it was both dark and the door appeared to be overrun with plant life. It was curious and more than a bit worrying, but the bulky android tried to smother the feelings for once, instead focusing on using the span of his limited energy into getting to Arin Or at least, where he hoped Arin would be. Something told him that something was awry, if the deterioration of their home and the lab was any indication. As well as the fact that Jon had awoken with no power from the chargers, and he was only still moving at the moment because of the kinetically-powered, tiny generator coupled with a tiny battery that Barry had equipped in him some time ago. He was weak, and he could barely move, but he had to keep going.

_For Arin. He might be in danger._

Finally, he reached the weed and vine infested door, and with the exertion of a little more energy than he should have put out, even more dangerously so considering that he himself was only functioning with the bare minimum as it was. But he still tried his best and after a few heaves he managed to force the door open, ripping it from its leafy and grassy appendages. What little unstable light there was revealed the remains of an automaton collapsed on the floor. It was powered down, and was of an older make, made of a (once polished) bronze plating and upon closer inspection, an inscription reading his name. Arin’s name.

_Ar1n. AR1NT67 Mark XII._

He barely paused to think as he dropped down to the floor on his “knees”, the heavy duty steel hitting the floor with a clang and he dug his arms underneath the pile of robotics parts, flashes of worry pinging off in his mind. A solitary  _ting_ from somewhere inside his metal cranium signified his dangerously high ratio of level of exertion to the power he was cranking out, but he didn’t care, because he had found Arin, and Jon was pretty sure he was as close to being dead as a robot could be.

_Of course, I could put him back together again, but I’m just… not sure how. The parts here seem different from what I remember him having… Did Barry do this?_

The bulky automaton paused in a very brief moment of consideration. He remembered Arin’s last update being the Mark III. Was it possible he misread or misinterpreted the inscription? Though the visual feedback he was getting was starting to blur around the edges and the corners of his “vision” was growing dark as he moved his eyes around (muted whirrs now, he was sure his whole body was generally quieter than he remembered it being and the changes that Barry put in- there was no other option- were taking a toll on the ‘battery life’ he had left) he still tried to get a closer look. Getting his vision to focus got increasingly difficult but in the grainy quality he only barely managed to read again, ‘AR1NT67 MARKXII’.

A ping of nervousness and worry. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling  _pings_  now, instead of waves of emotions like before, but he didn’t care. He was too concerned about Arin, and he dragged the (was that rust Jon saw?!) parts to a less cluttered part of the room, himself backing up against the wall as he stared at the ceiling trying to regain any kind of energy. The first thing he would do when he had the ability would be to put his companion back together again. Jon’s hands clenched, and the fans in his back were spinning faster and he felt himself getting heated up once again and he didn’t really care, he was thinking of as many possible ways he could save his friend.

_Arin. My friend. If he were even here right now, he would say that bots just don’t have friends. But he doesn’t get it._

_  
_Jon tucked away all of the digits on his right hand but left his index finger outstretched. The steel that Barry had so masterfully crafted to look like a fingernail was about to undergo a much rougher process than just for show but there were far more important things to do with it than admire an imitation of enamel. Painstakingly slowly - he registered his movements as being a lot more slow than they usually were, he once again brushed aside his ‘body”s growing alerts for his own state of ‘health’, if you could call it that, in favor of slowly screwing Arin’s body parts together again.

Leg to thigh part. Two screws on each side of the kneecap joint. Foot to the ankle joint. Another and another. An arm into a socket, screw it into place, test that it works by swinging the arm a little, and Jon watched as Arin’s body was put back into place. He remembered how he had nearly lost it earlier, as he had attempted for the first time to line up each of Arin’s lonely body parts into some kind of organized fashion so he could start putting him together, but seeing the face of his friend… His buddy, his pal, with rust creeping up the side of his iron jaw. It was a humbling image, and Jon felt even more concerned.

_How long have we been out?_

“Must have been a long time…” Arin croaks.

“A-Arin?!” Jon’s eyes widened so fast there was an audible clicking sound as his eyelids shot up and his grip on Arin’s arm just reassembled body tightened. The limbless robot whined out tinnily, but quietly, weakly. If an automaton with a ‘face’ made of iron could wince, Arin was coming damn close.

“B-be careful, with that arm. You literally just put it back on, and I- I’m feeling all the stuff that comes with.”

“D-don’t be silly, Arin! Robots can’t… can’t feel pain, so- so it doesn’t even matter anyways, it’s all just simulated, it’s no big deal, grow a pair, c’mon—” Jon’s ‘face’ tightened and again- if a robot could cry, if they weren’t  _trapped in these goddamned metal bodies and made of flesh and blood and Jon could give Arin a hug_ -

But just as he felt his fan overheating as it seemed to be doing a lot more since he had come to, the lights in Arin’s eyes faded away with a tiny crackle,  _pop_  and he was gone once again. There were waves of feelings that not even an advanced model like Jon could explain, could possibly put words to, but  _again_ , he shrugged off the ever-pressing threat of short circuiting opting instead to drive all of his effort double time into putting his companion back together.

His mind made a dim observation, in the corner of his vision, that his own limbs were shaking because the more he put the puzzle pieces of the robot’s anatomy together the more the unstable he felt his mind scrambling like eggs chickens little birds cute ‘cute’ robots cannot  _Ar1n_  I don’t want him to die I want him to live I I  _I want I need I love_

The bot’s vision long gone, the lifeless husk crumpled and kneeling, the reassuring muted hum of machinery stopped unceremoniously with a click. AR1NT67 Mark XII, body parts assembled but missing one key piece, felt his vision darken, the light that had accompanied his companion returning for him and bringing him back to life simply be crushed, ground like a piece of scrap tin in an incinerator.

The one piece that he did not have, the one part he simply could not do without, was, of course, his ‘heart’. The motherboard, that would so neatly slot into the space in his chest, be twisted by warm human hands and he would feel engines stir to life once more. All impossible, as he shut down for what felt to be the final time.

The only thing he could take real comfort in, though it barely registered since his capability for his cheap replacement of fake ‘emotions’ was the first thing to go, was that if he were to die, at least it would be with him.

_With Jon._

Two words filling his mind, spilling into what was left of his vision, repeated over and over a sum to infinity melded into one. “With Jon,” became just “Jon,” over and over. Somewhere in his growing vast numbness of a body, there was one ping. Incessant, tiny, and unfamiliar. The only thing keeping him from shutting down straight away. Insistent and as if trying to convince Arin to,  _no, no, don’t die_.

 _Jon jon jon,_  He repeated in his mind. A comforting thread to his sanity and order.  _jon jon jon jon jon_.

With no announcement, he was gone, the blinking LED indicating emergency power blinked red once before fizzling out.


	6. Real Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kidgrumps AU!

Halloween night called, and the two young boys knew their duties, faithfully dressed in their most extravagant of costumes and standing proud.

They were staying at the chubbier faced boy’s house for the time being as they prepped however, his mother fawning over how precious they looked from a distance.

“S’lute, sojer Awin!” The boy dressed as a robot made out of cardboard boxes with dings and whistles drawn on himself barked in a high pitched voice.

“Yessir!” The soldier in question straightened immediately, the tail of his velociraptor costume barely brushing the floor.

“Are you ready to go trick ‘r treatin’ Awin?!” The cardboard robot tried to shout aggressively the best he could in his squeaky voice.

“Yes, sir!” The older boy replied faithfully.

Briefly, the chubby boy looked to his mother, who was sitting in a chair in the kitchen watching them through the doorway.

“Mommy!”, he called.

“Yeah, hon?”

“Can me and Awin go trick ‘r treatin’ now?”

“Mmm. Be safe on the streets.”

“Yay! C’mon Awin, let’s go!” A smile spread gaily across his face, creating a dimple in his face that made the older nine year old smile for reasons he couldn’t comprehend.

With that, Jon stood on his toes at the door, trying to grab the handle and only scrabbling at the bottom of it. His best friend caught on and together they pulled open the heavy door. Also together, they stepped out into the streetlit road side by side, one of each hand firmly grasping a bucket decorated to look like a pumpkin. They looked at each other and grinned in unison.

“Let’s go!” The older boy took his friend’s hand by the wrist and pulled him to the first house. Together, one pudgy index finger next to a skinnier one, they pressed the doorbell. Crickets chirped in the bushes behind the house, and Arin listened carefully for anything that could give away a person coming down the stairs with a bucket of sweet, sweet candy. The only thing they heard, though, was other kids, some up or further down the street shouting “Trick or treat!” and adults complimenting costumes. With a sigh, Arin released his arm and the two boys turned and began to trudge down the driveway of their first house- a disappointment already- when they heard a slow, painstaking creak from behind them.

In a rush, they both turned, and instinctively Jon shouted in his six-year old voice.

“Trick ‘r… treat?”

They were greeted with a doorway void of light, a wall of blackness and Arin felt his friend cling onto his arm tightly.

“Awin?” He whispered, his knees bent and ready to scram.

“Y-yeah?” And the older boy would never admit it, but he was terrified.

“I… wanna go home now, Awin…”

All of sudden, a figure leapt out of the darkness, and both the boys screamed. Jon’s eyes were screwed shut, but Arin could only watch on in horror. A towering figure, donned in an endless, sweeping cloak, loomed over the little boys and he couldn’t stop himself from cowering, falling behind his own bangs. He wrapped his arms around his friend protectively and felt Jon bury his face in his chest.

A growling voice, deep and guttural and utterly petrifying to the boys boomed from above them, “Foolish boys… It will  _always_  be ‘trick’.” and Arin felt his friend quiver in his arms. He had to force himself not to do the same and slowly, surely, he backed away, taking Jon with him. 

“I- We’re- Sorry…” He tried to apologize as the two of them backpedaled down the driveway but was only met with silence from the figure and what Arin felt was supposed to be a smile, but he could have sworn he saw long glistening fangs. 

The moment they felt their heels hit the uneven concrete of the road, they turned and bolted together simultaneously back to Jon’s front yard and straight through the front door. The younger boy’s mother looked up in concern but saw nothing but the door suddenly open and only heard the sound of two sets of feet scrambling and thudding up the stairs faster than she had thought possible, and shook her head.  _Boys._ she thought with a wry smile. 

In fact, it wasn’t until the door was locked and both of them huddled under a blanket on Jon’s bed with a torch gripped in Arin’s hands that they said another word. 

“A-Awin… We didn’t even get any c-candy…” The younger boy sniffed and rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, his mouth twisting itself into a frown. Arin bit his lip. He hated seeing his best friend so sad. 

“H-hey, it’s okay, I can just get some from downstairs…" 

"You c-can’t go, Awin, ’s scary, don’t leave me alone!" 

And the six year old pulled out all the stops, putting on his best performance with huge, shiny eyes and a wobbly bit lip. 

"But I don’t want you to cry…" 

He appeared to be thinking for a second, and before Jon could stop him, the older boy popped out from under the blanket and grabbed some crayons from on top of his dresser and tore a sheet of paper from his own notebook that he took everywhere. Quickly, he drew two crude figures- a stout robot and a hunched velociraptor with blocky L-shaped "guns” and with his limited repertoire of other colors available, long lines of each color from the weapons. Before returning to the blanket where Jon was still huddled under, squealing about monsters, he let his eyes linger on his rough drawing, then grabbed it and dove back under the blanket. 

“Don’t be sad, Jon.” He offered a hopeful smile and the drawing with it. 

“I made this for you." 

The chubby boy took the paper into both his hands tentatively, and Arin could almost see the cogs working in his mind. 

”’S a dinosaur laser fight, Awin!“ The chubby cheeks lifted and Jon beamed brightly. Arin felt himself smiling too. Reflexively, he reached his arms around his friend and the two hugged tightly. When they released each other, Jon stared up at his friend, two parts adoration and one part something else, then grabbed him by the sides of his head and pulled him closer, kissing softly one cheek then the other. Arin felt blood rushing to his cheeks and he looked away nervously. 

"My mommy says ’s normal to do that to say thanks, and for people you care a lot about. She does it lots.”

“Mmm." 

"But Awin…”

“Yeah, Jon?”

“I’m still s-scared of the monsters outside…”

At this, Arin couldn’t help but smile. He had gotten over the initial shock of the creepy guy next door, but he felt a lot braver than before, and pulled the hood of his costume up. 

“Don’t worry. I’m a dinosaur. Monsters don’t kill other dinosaurs… But I will. I’ll protect you!” His voice cracked, but it did not betray his fear, because he felt safe with Jon. 


	7. PWOP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> porns without plot featuring danny in the last bit

 

1. 

“Fuckin’…  _more_ , damn it… fucking give me  _more_ , Jon, more…" 

Arin panted, his eyes rolled up to the heavens (‘ahegao’-like, his ever-present anime side thought) and drool snaked out the side of his mouth. 

"I,” Jon huffed back, his eyes not even open. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…" 

"Please… I  _need_  it,” Arin said, his voice dropping octaves beyond 'husky’ and embellished with nothing but need. “I  _need more,_ I feel like I’m fucking gaping inside, I swear to  _fuckin’_  god, Jon, just-”

“I’m already-  _hff- I-’m,_ oh, GOD- I’m already b-balls fuckin’ deep, man, what do you want me to-?" 

"I- I- ah! I don’t know, but for fuck’s sake, anything, anything at all…" 

Their brief exchange of words- they could be barely be called words, being slurred into each other to the point of incoherence- fell silent, the air only filled with their gasps, their throaty moans, the slapping of Jon’s balls against Arin’s taint…

"Uuunnngh…” The man whose legs were clutching, bent around the bearded man’s waist and whose ankles were linked so tightly that veins popped, grunted deeply. With a trembling hand, he grabbed his partner’s hand, previously caressing the small of his back, and fashioned the hand’s three center fingers together, and squeezed it tightly. 

“You- you want me to…?” The question was left hanging in the air, and Arin didn’t reply. He did not need to speak, letting his desperate asshole clenching around Jon’s cock do the talking for him. 

Hesitating, Jon glanced at his fingers, then back at the wild animal riding his dick. To be fair (and an extremely harsh critic) Arin  _was_  not as tight as he was at the beginning of their relationship. He smiled inwardly.  _All the ridiculously incredible sex we had, for fuckin’ sure._

“You fuckin’ slut…” He whispered into Arin’s ear, trailing his hand down Arin’s side, making the hair on Arin’s neck rise, causing goosebumps to raise across Arin’s forearms. 

“You’re such a whore for my body, Arin, Arin…" 

And Arin only thrust back harder, threw his body down, the damp and sticky hands interlocked behind Jon’s neck tightening but only a little bit more than a before because they were already so tight. 

 _Tight_ … like his fuckin’ asshole became once Jon shoved his fingers up it next to his dick. It was a bit uncomfortable, there was a little chafing, but the lube (or was it the cum from earlier; his precum now…?) soon made the additional intruders slick and slippery. He decided to change up the game a little bit.

He groaned as he started to change the pace of his fingers and his cock, one going in to the hilt and then pulling out while the other went in to the knuckles. The reaction he received in turn was golden, something he stored in his memory for future fap sessions because seeing his grumpy Arin reduced to a puddle of moans, whimpers, and even  _squeaks_  was a secret, wicked delight. 

* * *

 

 

2. 

Arin loved to see such a handsome, strong-looking man, beard and all, in such a vulnerable state. It was even sweeter with the private knowledge that the one who usually topped was now the one kneeling, ankles bound to thighs, hands bound behind back, and head drooping with hungry dark pools staring up at him. There was no gag to complete the outfit, because he knew a gag wasn’t necessary at all. Jon would not speak until spoke to, and even then, only when he was allowed. 

He reclined, luxuriously, cat-like, in his beanbag, admiring the silent but struggling mess before him. His manhood stood obscenely, jutting outwards. If he squinted, he could make out the delicious-looking off white that leaked like a tap out his slit and he felt his own heat get hotter. 

"You’re a real cute little shit when you’re tied up like that,” he called coyly from his seat. Arin entertained the idea of teasing his partner- no, in this situation, at this particular time, he was  _his submissive_ , and Arin felt a jolt and precum of his own squirt a little into his pants. With the decency to blush, he gently pulled the waistband of his pyjama pants down (knowing, all the while of course, that a certain someone’s eyes were trained on his every action) until his own hard member sprung out. Yes, he would tease, and he would do a damn good job of it, too. 

Idly, he pulled the arm tucked behind his head to fondle his balls, gently, and wrapped his hand into a loose fist around his shaft, bringing his whole arm up and dragging it down. He knew it was driving Jon to the edge, but that was exactly what he was trying to do, anyway. 

“You like it when I tease you, right?” He murmured, but in the silence of the basement, he knew his sub had heard. Arin didn’t even bother to look up. At least, not just yet. 

“Hmmm,” Wondering, mockingly. “You’d probably like it more if it were you doing this, though.”

He made his jacking off a little faster. Those eyes were like lasers, he could almost feel them. 

“Except you’d probably prefer slobbering all over my cock." 

Almost at a normal pace. 

"Not choking, because you’re practiced…”

Arin moved the hand working his balls down his taint. 

“Taking my heat down your throat, though. A real treat.”

He positioned his index and middle finger together, bent them back, trailed circles around his hole. 

“My fucking, throbbing, dripping,  _cock_.”

He heard a whimper, barely audible. Briefly, he considered punishing him for it, but decided-  _no_ , this was far too much fun. 

“I mean, look at you.”

He pushed at his asshole with his thumb, different pressures all ultimately resulting in the pucker relaxing a little more. 

“I don’t even need to touch you- I’m just fuckin’ talking to you right now, man, and you’re already on the edge of blowin’ your fuckin’ spunk everywhere.”

The grinning man closed one eye as he angled his two fingers once again.

“Fuckin’ cum already, then, why don’t you." 

Jon obliged. It splattered over the floor, three or four shots, the final shot barely dribbling out the head. 

And despite the show he had been putting on, with his two fingers wriggling inside his ass, he felt himself just on the edge too. He closed his eyes in bliss…

Suddenly, he sensed something casting a shadow over him. 

His 'submissive’ stood tall over him, a soft smile on his face, cum still leaking salaciously and rolling down his twitching shaft. The bonds holding his limbs together were shucked off, on the floor in neat little piles. 

"H-how…?”

“What made you think I never wanted to be the sub once in a while, man?”

“You never fuckin’-”

“Now fucking lick the cum off my dick, asshole. That was fucking wonderful.”

* * *

 

 

3. 

“Mmmmm." 

Dan closed his eyes. He felt his friend gently push a cupcake into his mouth, and some frosting got on his upper lip. Before he could lick it off himself, though, something warm and wet caught most of it. He smiled, softly. 

"More, please." 

Arin responded in kind. A rustle in the bag, and two more sweet pastries, this time a couple of hefty shortcake biscuits. One had a bit of cream and a tiny slice of strawberry on it, so he fed the plain one first. The crumbs were a bit messy, some of them falling down the front of Dan’s shirt and some falling inside, tickling his chest. 

"I think I might take off my shirt, though. Give me a sec, man." 

"Yeah. No problem. I don’t, uh, mind.”

And he peeled his shirt off. Arin couldn’t take his eyes off his friend’s rather impressive chest, though, and he felt a little warmth in the pit of his stomach. Swallowing-  _why was he nervous?_ \- he offered the second piece of shortcake, the fancy one, in the flat of his hand. 

“You, uh… You wanna fuckin’ take it?" 

"Ha, what happened to feeding me, brah? That was totally cool, I’m just saying.”

Dan chuckled, and Arin realized that those eyes staring back at him were half lidded, and he had to shift his position on the couch because he felt something tightening, somewhere, he felt a little uncomfortable… 

“Y-yeah… Okay.” Swallowing again, he pushed the shortcake towards Dan’s lips. 

“Mmmmmm…" Was it Arin, or was that humming just a notch more sensual than the last time?

Danny snapped down the shortcake, licking his lips again (lingering for a second too long, and Arin felt uneasy). "This is some fucking A-plus shit you got here. Remind me to write down the name of the place you got this stuff.”

“Yeah, sure, no, uh, problem.”

Reaching over and grabbing something, anything, to make him stop talking in that  _husky_  voice, Arin’s fingers wrapped around…

A stick of licorice. 

_You’re making a terrible mistake, you know exactly where this is gonna go and damned if you do play up to it…_

His hand trembled and he felt Dan eye the stick of deep red candy. The sweat in his palm began to run a little red and a tiny drop of discolored crimson ran down his wrist, down his arm, and he shivered. He pushed the stick gingerly towards the expectant man sitting across him, and what he had expected to happen happened. 

Dan grinned as he began to lick up the side of the licorice, drawing his tongue up  _painfully_ slowly, slowing even more the closer he got to the fingers holding the end. Arin couldn’t tear his eyes away, the sight was something ripped from his own 'wet-

And then his mouth enveloped his fingers, and then everything that came after was a rush because nimble hands touched Arin’s crotch through his pants and he felt his whole body tremble as he was on the border of actually- actually-  _actually–_

He felt his hips thrust, he felt his mind wash clean to a blank slate for just a few seconds as he emptied his spunk into the front of his pants and he moaned, a long drawn out moan that lasted for… a long time. Embarrassingly long. 

He opened his eyes (he didn’t even notice they had been closed as he came) to see an amused look on his friend’s face. 

“Into some kinky-ass shit, eh?” Dan laughed. Arin breathed a sigh of relief, then laughed (albeit a bit nervously) too. 

“Y-yeah…”


	8. the mpreg crackfic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> good lord.

“I’m pregnant.”

Jon held up the pregnancy test between finger and thumb, at eye level to Arin, holding it to his face. Two red lines, indicating a clear positive.

“What?”

“Yeah.” Jon’s face was unreadable. 

“Are you sure that’s not just a fal-“

“Yeah. I went through three tests. I don’t think this is pretend.”

As if to prove it, Jon pulled two more from a pocket with his free hand, waving them around.

“…Shit.”

Arin’s eyes widened and began to fill. He tumbled forward and into Jon’s surprised embrace, burying his head in the crook of Jon’s neck and shoulder. “I never…”

Jon laughed strangely, still clearly very bewildered. “I thought it was just really fast weight gain, you know?  Like I was just eating too much junk food, or whatever. Then I woke up this morning and threw up all over the bathroom floor, and like… Shit, man. I guess it tipped me off.”

“I can’t believe it either,” Arin placed his hands squarely on Jon’s shoulders and pushed him to arm’s length so they could look each other in the eyes, and it was now that Jon saw the wonder and absolutely sheer joy in the depths of his. “I’m going to be a dad. You’re-  _we’re_  going to be dads.” Slowly, Jon pushed the tests back into his pockets. He raised a trembling hand, index finger outstretched, to wipe away the tears slowly pooling at the corner of Arin’s eyes.

“We’re gonna- We’re gonna be a fuckin’- A fuckin’  _family-_ “ 

“Hey. Hey.” Jon brought Arin back into the hug, holdng his shaking form tight. 

“We can’t forget Nicole, and Suzy-“

The shaking promptly stopped.

“Oh, shit,” Arin whispered, his voice still weak. “ _Suzy-_ “

The hands he had on Jon’s back became clawlike grips, and he began to sink to the floor, his shoulders heaving unevenly with every growing, wracking sob. “How am I going to fuckin’ _tell_  her-“

Jon reacted quickly, crouching down and patting his best friend- his lover- his everything- softly on the back, leaning his head in just enough to plant a gentle kiss on his scruffy cheek. 

“Arin- We’re gonna be all right.” Jon said quietly, in his most reassuring voice.

The air was pregnant with tension for just a moment, as Arin’s panicking slowed.

Jon looked his partner dead in the eye. “As long as we’re together dude, it’s gonna be okay, no matter what happens. Bros for life.” He cracked a small smile at his own cheesiness, but it was always going to be true.

Solemnly, wiping the remnants of his tears on his own this time, Arin nodded.

Jon took a step back. The news had gone over better than he had expected. He stood, and offered a hand to his squatting counterpart. With a hefty tug, Arin was brought to his feet and they stood side by side once more. Jon put his hands on his hips, expectantly, and looked sideways with a wry smile.

“So… Like, judging from what you said about  _family_ , we’re not gonna abort it or-“

“No! What the fuck, of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.” The older man glanced back, returning with a small smile of his own.

 

They stood together, and as they shuffled towards the door with one hand in the other’s, Arin’s smile grew.

“Can I, uh, touch it?”

Their peals of laughter rang out through the house, soon to be echoed by more.


	9. triggered like a gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> terrible angst: if for some reason arin became unable to remember jon's existence after a certain age. takes place several decades in the future

“Good morning.” An elderly lady, with hair pulled loosely back in a ponytail, balanced the silver tray on the palm of her hand as she tucked a blonde streak in her dyed black hair away.

Gently, she placed it down on the low coffee table in the center of the room. “How’re you feeling today?”

“Fine, hon. How about you? You look just as beautiful as ever.” A voice, still as pleasant as caramel and smooth as it was from many, many years gone by, came out from a pile of newspapers.

“You should probably, y’know, do something about those. The kids are coming over today.” Suzy Hanson tried to mask the hurt in her voice as she eked out the last few words. She picked up a coffee of old-school style tea and sipped gingerly from it.

“Hey, no, who cares about the newspapers- what’s up? You sound so tired.” Her husband of fifty eight years pushed the yellowed papers away and revealed the aged face of Arin Hanson, once renowned animator and friend of many, with a smile that crinkled his eyes genuinely. It choked Suzy up. She said nothing and sat down next to him, sighing as she settled into their black couch they had kept for…

She had always refused to throw it away, even if Dan and him got a bigger one a long time ago, even if Arin constantly pestered her to get rid of it and when the disease kicked in over the years, she still held strong. She refused to let a symbol of the year of love and friendship and happiness with Jon go, even if she felt a little jealous and a little torn up about it when it happened. She forced herself to be understanding, though, and perhaps, she told herself, it was for the greater good.

Even if Arin couldn’t ever remember it.

She swallowed- an audible gulp that drew Arin’s attention- and broke the news.

“We’re going to Jon’s funeral.” Immediately, she felt her eyes look away on their own accord. Suzy felt her husband’s puzzled eyes boring into her and couldn’t resist a glance backwards. To gauge the damage, she thought. She saw blank eyes, a hint of curiosity, and the jovial expression wiped clean. His face was like a slate.

“Who?”

*

She ended up being the only one to go. The kids knew about how sensitive the topic was and thus it never came up beyond the first time, from a slip of the tongue on Suzy’s part.

She remembered it too clearly- but she was only half glad that the grandkids never found out because it would have raised too many questions.

_”This is the fucking boopin’-est.” Arin giggled like a child, and Suzy obviously found his laughter contagious. The first family trip to Disney World, and they were all eating ice creams- the father clearly enjoying a popsicle shaped like the titular (and to a sad degree, outdated) character of Disney, Goofy._

_“Arin!” He turned to look at her, a playful grin on his face._

_“Yeah?”_

_“Watch your language in front of the kids!”_

_He looked at her and laughed. “They’re cool kids. They’re cool with it.” Fondly, he ruffled their elder son’s hair, and patted their youngest’s shoulder. “Aren’t ya?”_

_Both nodded, and their elder son looked at his father._

_“Hey, dad? What’s ‘boopin’-est’?”_

She shivered, her hands on the wheel looking frailer than ever. She was not getting younger, and neither was her husband. As the family van, empty of anything but the elderly woman, made its way up the hill towards their home, Suzy stopped the car in their driveway. The kids had gone their separate ways, their goodbyes to Arin having been said before they left the house. With a gentle exhalation, she parked the car, and laid her head on the headseat, staring at the grey concrete wall of their driveway. For a minute or two she contemplated trying for the last time. Contemplated trying to trigger him and his history, because there was something different about him, something that just wasn’t there when he couldn’t remember, and it terrified her a little bit, privately. Before she could change her mind, she flattened her black knee-length skirt, took off her shiny black heels, and forced herself out of the car. She fished her phone out of her bag as she padded towards their front door, wiping her sweaty feet on their worn welcome mat and swiped it on their lock, her shaky hands dropping it the moment the door unlocked. Cursing, she crouched down and grabbed the facedown phone and grimaced as she stood. Her hand rested on the door handle and it remained there for a second-  _Should I really…?_ \- and then shook her head, her hair splashing out of its already loose bun and down her shoulders. A loose look would be necessary, she thought.  _If I’m really going to try this for the last time, I better make it count._  The last time she had tried, when she refused to answer Arin’s query as to exactly whose funeral she was going to, she wasn’t really trying, wanting to avoid too much conflict.

She tried to clear her head and pushed the door open, closing it gently behind her and heading towards the sitting room where she knew she would find him on the PC. He still liked to pick up his tablet pen from time to time and drawing something, of course, but…

“Drawing the characters again, huh?” Suzy accompanied her rhetorical with a sad smile that evidently complexed the man curled up in the chair in front of his screens.

“Oh, hey, welcome back, babe. How was it?”

“As far as funerals go…” She put her bag on a side table, picking up a framed family photo and squinting at it before putting it back. “It was okay. ”

“Okay…” Thoughtfully, his eyes sparkled, maybe a little duller than they used to, mused Suzy silently, and he spun around in his chair to reveal a traditional portrait of the both of them. In their twenties.

“I hope this might help, I’ve been working on it all day.” A small hopeful smile, and Suzy almost felt her heart melt, almost gave over and almost, just almost, made her forget what she was going to do. But she didn’t.

“Oh, my god, Arin, thank you…” She felt tears well up in her eyes again, and looked away. She hoped he wouldn’t notice, but of course he did- he was so sensitive and sweet and caring to everyone he loved. He immediately stood up and stepped towards her, a comforting embrace full of warmth that couldn’t cull the chills down her back. She couldn’t stop herself from burying her face in his shoulder.

“Sweetie…?” He hugged her, but she couldn’t reciprocate.

Inbetween gulps that became sobs, she managed to say.

“D-… Do you r-remember- no, no, do you  _know_ \- no, no, NO,  _did_  you know a guy-… a guy with a beard and a crazy mane of black hair and- he  _always_ \- he always wore black button up shirts and- socks and huge- h-huge gym shorts and- do you remember, Arin?!”

She couldn’t stop herself from screaming the last four words out, salty tears making her makeup run down her face. Her fingers grasped at the back of his cotton tshirt, and she felt her body slump towards the floor in desperation and her knees bent inwards. She sobbed loudly into his shirt, smearing black onto it.

In a whisper, she said almost to herself, “Don’t you remember the good times we all had together…? the times  _you two_  had together… I didn’t even mind you guys making out and kissing and shit, I don’t- I just- I just want you back, Arin.”

A face, full of confusion and terror- she could see him running back its brief span of the last few days to see if he had done anything to upset her- and all he could say was,”…What?”

*

They were sitting on the chair in front of their rig, together and Suzy’s face was clean of makeup. She knew Arin was staring at her tired-looking face when he thought she wasn’t looking, but she ignored it.

"Do you remember Barry, Arin?”

“Well, yeah, of course I do. Great man, fantastic friend. Fuck, he helped us build this rig-”

“Do you remember how we- how you met him?”

“Shit… It was so long ago, I can’t even remember. Why?”

“Well… You met him through-”

And she had to swallow a lump in her throat before continuing.

“You met him through Jon.”

“… The guy whose funeral you went to.”

“… Yeah.”

“So… it was a long time ago. You guys kept in touch? You never told me.”

“No, Arin. I tell you whenever I try to trigger you. You… You have some weird strand of Alzeihmer’s, I don’t remember exactly what the doctors told us, but…”

“Alzeihmer’s… You’re not… serious, are you? I know I’m getting older, Suzy, but fuck-”

“No, you don’t understand- you lost huge chunks of your lifetime, and you can’t remember them. Like… Say for example… Do you remember our boys going to preschool? Do you remember  _driving_  them to preschool? Anything from that time period…”

There was a brief moment of silence between them as he tried to recall. She knew he would get nothing, but she knew he would try to think of something. Made up, like the other times he had tried to remember.   
“Hey, no, wait! I  _can_  remember, it’s crystal clear and I remember-“

“It’s a phenomenon called imagination inflation, Arin. The doctor explained it to me, that you might do it extremely quickly when I… try to trigger you. Your mind creates fake memories that seem so vivid they seem more, way more, real than your actual ones…” Suzy had to avert her eyes to avoid the look of shock and abject, scared realization dawning on him that was evident every single time.

“But…” He faltered. “Of course our boys went to preschool, I- I just never really-”

Suzy shook her head. She felt like she couldn’t take it anymore and shook their mouse to put their computer off sleep. With a few clicks, she pulled up a web browser and was on the now somewhat outdated and out of use video streaming site, YouTube. With it already automatically signed in to Arin’s account (he was one of the few still active users, of course) she pulled down the logout menu.

“W-wait, what are you-”

Hastily, she keyed in the disused email and password for the Game Grumps account.

“G-Game Grumps…? But we stopped that years ago-”

She went to the listing of all of the uploaded videos and began the lengthy journey scrolling down to the bottom.

“S-Suzy?” Arin whispered under his breath.

After a minute of nonstop scrolling, she hit the bottom. The first episode.

“Welcome to the first episode of Game Grumps!”  
Arin could recognize his own voice. And then he heard another voice, that instantly shook him and sent shivers down his spine even if he truly for the life of him couldn’t place it. A voice that he curiously just  _knew_.

The entire ten or eleven minutes of the episode was silence from the both of them, the sound of Arin’s own voice and this other guy filling the chasm.

*

They had marathoned the entire Kirby Super Star series in silence, and upon the last few words- “We’ll take another step… and we’ll take another. And another. Because that’s how you keep on going…”- Arin could only sit dumbly in shock.

“This…  _We_  started Game Grumps? But what about Danny and Ross-“

"It used to be just you and Jon, Arin. You were so close. Inseparable.”

“But I’m sure it was me and Dan-”

“Listen.”

Suzy pulled up an episode of the playthrough of Sonic 06 and skipped to the end- Arin noted Barry’s trademark yellow text reading ’This audio is a gift.’ and again felt his spine chill.

Again, there was a tangible silence between the old couple and only the sound of his own voice and what he began to recognize as Jon’s.

They were making sounds, sounds that might have been interspersed with laughter so that they seemed like a joke but they were sounds that Arin could recognize as real, so definitely real, and involuntarily he shivered, feeling his cheeks flush.

“You were  _inseparable_.”

"You mean-”

“After that episode you guys had to stop recording. Neither me nor Nicole really wanted to know.”

“ _You mean_ -“

“Yes, Arin. He loved you, just like I love you, and you loved him also.”

“But I love you too-”

“Yeah. You do. You loved us all.”

The old man now looked much older, and much sadder, with tears inexplicably rolling down his face. Suzy couldn’t really control herself either, but she tried to stay strong for him. After all, he had been everybody’s support before. It was time to let him taste his own medicine, and for the first time in years Arin Hanson began sobbing openly.

Suzy knew she had to give him some time to let it sink in, and she was tired. It was late. She eased herself out of the chair, allowing Arin more space much to his chagrin, and went to the black couch. The first Grump couch, she thought wearily and with a twinge of sadness. Of course.

Sleep did not come easy, but when it did, she dreamed the most vividly (and not entirely pleasantly) she had in a while.

*

She woke up to late morning light hitting her eyelids. Rubbing her eyes, Suzy sat up, the blanket that she assumed Arin must have tucked her into afterwards falling loosely around her. She heard faint laughter and realized that the final episode of the playthrough of Goof Troop was still playing. The faithful watcher, however, who it seemed had stayed up all night, had fallen asleep in his chair, his hunched body silhouetted by the light coming from the screen. The episode ended, and the page refreshed, playing the next episode after a moment’s delay. 

She felt so tired, and so exhausted, and she knew that it wouldn’t be long before Arin would forget once more, but she knew she had to try. At least try. For Jon’s sake, if nobody else’s, and she had to try to do Arin’s once-best friend some justice. Slowly, rubbing her eyes, she stood up and ambled to the old man, resting a hand on his shoulder over the chair. 

“Sweetie…” She muttered quietly. 

“I’m so sorry." 

Arin didn’t seem to respond. She noted that his eyes were still closed, and she sighed. But before she could take her hand away, she felt his hand close over the top of her own. 

"Wait. Don’t go.” And his eyes opened. They looked so much older than they had before she tried to explain everything again. 

“Tell me. Suzy, please tell me, and please be honest with me. 

She couldn’t form a response, opting to nod. 

"Will I forget all of what I’ve just… recovered, after… After however long it takes? A- a day? A… few hours?” And Suzy could see his bottom lip trembling, and his eyes getting wet. 

“That’s… what happened before.” She said quietly, hoping he wouldn’t hear. But he did, of course he did. 

“And it’ll probably happen again, yeah?”

“Yeah…”

And even as they spoke, Arin’s eyes began to glaze over. 

“You know, he has such a nice singing voice… I wish I had known him.”


	10. World War Grep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> world war II au: fluff

_It’s September 1944- 6 years after a specification for an attack aircraft was issued for the United States Army Corps. It was proposed in response a night flying aircraft bomber called the[Douglas A-20 Havoc](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F2%2F2e%2FDouglas_A-20G_Havoc.jpg&t=MjYwNzFhYjhiOWY2OGU3NjhmZTUzZGFkNWU1ZDMyZTVjMjdiNThkOCxGb3I0QmQ3OQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AvjVCSupYXAMvPlcwaGGAxw&p=http%3A%2F%2Fcoolgaltw.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F61750957546&m=1). _

The mechanic wiped his sweat-sheened face with the back of his elbow, dark grease smudged all over his face, and he grinned. With the fighter planes packed, fixed, shiny and ready to go, the only thing missing being the pilots.

He picked up his trusty spanner and swung it high in the air, catching it firmly in his weathered fingers without missing a beat and rapping it sharply on the steel-paneled inside of the warehouse he was working in, the sound ringing out inside and he winced. It was effective enough that it brought the pilot in question and his companion in, though, as they stumbled through the reinforced door.

One particular foot soldier Arin Hanson and his more ‘well-rounded’ fighter pilot friend Jonathan Jafari stepped into the warehouse, their eyes shut tightly in laughter. The soldier, geared up and kitted out in half-dressed thick, padded, vests and pocketed canvas clothes provided nice contrast to his ever so slightly more squat companion Jafari, who insisted on everybody calling him informally Jon. He also insisted on wearing shorts instead of proper pants, but nobody complained because he made up for it with his skill in the field. Or the air, rather, Barry chuckled to himself, and brought his index finger and thumb to his lips, making an ear piercing whistle catch the attention of the two laughing comrades. At the sudden sound, the two wiped their tears away and stood to attention, a giggle escaping here and a barely concealed smirk there. They had their inside jokes, but they treated Barry always fairly, and all the while he worked busily behind the scenes, with the two of them at the front lines fighting the fight, and to be honest, he didn’t mind that much.

With an elbow balanced on Arin’s shoulder, Jon pushed the goggles that were slipping down his forehead again back up into his messy mane of hair, and sighed with an innocent smile on his face.

“Hit me up with the plane I’ll hopefully be flying tonight, my friend!” With a jovial chuckle, he strode over to the mechanic and slapped the flat of his hand on his back. Hard. The result was a heavy thud and chokes from the young man, but he smiled. 

“It’s right here, bud.” He recreated the same slapping motion that Jon had inflicted on him, but instead on the solid paneling of the side of the plane. A reverberating clang sounded out in the huge warehouse (built to sustain a workshop belonging to a team of mechanics that built hundreds, if not thousands of planes). 

“Wow, she looks beautiful. You did an A plus job, Kramer.” Arin let out a low whistle. 

“Just call me Barry. And thank you." 

By this time, Jon was peering curiously at every square inch of the almost shiny plane. He rapped on the glass and threw a sideways glance at his disheveled friend on the ground next to his best friend. His feet were balanced precariously on the edge of a stepladder as he leaned over the seats, his slippery grip on the rounded glass window the only thing keeping him from falling. 

"Barry. It has two seats up at the front.”

It also had a bomber’s seat in the back, but being trained in piloting, he paid it no heed. 

Barry shrugged nonchalantly. “I figured that you might want to take Arin for a joyride, especially with the whole night flying thing going on for ya now.”

Jon’s searching eyes froze, then brightened considerably. 

 _ _A joyride!__ He thought happily, and the smile returned. 

“Hey, didja hear that Arin? I’ll take ya out for a joyride on my brand new fixed up plane! A Havoc, this is. Also known as a Douglas. Also also known as a Boston. Also, a P70. The point is, it has lots of names." 

Arin looked a little nervous. He had never flown before- though he had enlisted three years ago never had a chance to fly nor had he ever flown at home before the Nazis- and told his eager friend as much in a quiet voice.

"Hey, no, don’t worry about it. It might be my first time flying for real, being a new pilot and all,” and Arin’s already worried face twisted just a little more. “…but I’ve got lots of training to back me up.” Jon winked and he felt his face flush. It would be an exciting first experience,  _ _doubly__  so with Jon, he thought.

“Can we go now?” The bearded young man grinned from ear to ear, wiggling his fingers and earning a light giggle from his friends.

“Sure, if you really want. Just keep the word on the down low.” Barry made his way towards the exit of the warehouse, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll be heading out now, gotta hit the hay." 

"Yes sir! Have a good night, Barry!” Jon called, half of his body already inside the popped hatch and sliding into the seat. He leaned over the side and offered Arin, who was wandering around the light night fighter and inspecting it carefully, an arm. 

“Hop in,” he said gently, an easy, genuine smile twinkling in his eyes as his lips curved. 

The tall foot soldier eyed the open hand before him, shooting a quick look at Jon and then at the aircraft, hesitating, before raising a hand and placing it gently in Jon’s. It felt strangely intimate. 

All of a sudden, the tenderness vanished when Jon’s fingers clasped around his own, and with a strong grip, he pulled Arin over the side. He scrambled over, the delay caused by the sudden breaking of intimacy (or so it felt to him) was only momentary, only for a second. He hoped that Jon hadn’t noticed his own blush, the hesitation that wasn’t  _ _just__  fear of riding the plane itself. 

 _ _No,__  Arin thought to himself, privately feeling quite troubled, buckling a harness and tightening the straps. 

 _ _It would be fear of riding the plane with nobody else but Jon Jafari.__ He swallowed, and told him that he was ready. 

The engine whirred and came to life, the two propellors becoming a blur- next to no indication of their potential slicing abilities at that speed, and Arin shivered. 

The plane took off in silence. Of course, it wasn’t for lack for trying, on either of their parts, simply a matter of the awkwardness between them. They were sitting closer together than they ever had before for one, and for another… the foot soldier had no words to say. He was too busy marveling at the sight outside their small glass hatch, the world flying by as  _ _they__  flew by. The dark, rolling hills coated in a soft light from the moon, incidentally full on this night. One patch of farmland that was located quite close to their base had sprouts, that from his own experience trudging through them a few weeks ago on a marching drill, came all the way up to his knees but from the view in the sky looked tiny. He found it all breathtaking. 

Jon brought the plane to a gradual descent. What they were doing was dangerous, both of them knew that if they were caught out taking military equipment out,  _ _especially__  not during training or drills, without authoritative permission… He exhaled and trained his eyes on a hill with a very long flat top.  _ _No vices… Barry did a fantastic job with her.__ _ _This’ll be a snap.__

And it was, the plane landed without issue, kissing the ground gently. Jon popped the hatch open and slid down the side of the brand new attack aircraft, his feet making contact with the soft, mildewed grass. Arin scrambled and tumbled out, his hands scratching at the slippery metal for a little too long before he fell onto his back onto the ground. Jon giggled, and walked around the nose of the plane, offering him a hand much like before they had entered the plane. 

Then he reconsidered, withdrawing his hand before sitting down next to him.  _ _Maybe a little bit too close for comfort__ , Arin thought nervously, heat flowing to his cheeks once again. He swallowed, the gulp sounding a lot louder than he expected. 

“I- Th- Thank you for taking me out here. It was amazing, I-”

“It was no problem, Arin. I was wanting to tell you something, anyway, and it was a perfect opportunity.” Jon closed his eyes and smiled, a soft wind making perfect timing and ruffling his now close cropped hair a little. 

Arin turned his focus from the dark night sky to his friend. Best friend. 

“What is it?”

“I was thinking. When this war is over, and we can finally go home…”

“Yeah?”

“Could I take you out to dinner?" 

He laughed, and before Arin could formulate a response, turned to look at him with sad eyes.

"Ah… Never mind. The truth is, even if this invasion works out in our favor, I-… There are always casualties in war, Arin. I might be new on this, but…” And he had to look away, because Arin saw the tell-tale glint of tears in the corner of his eye. He swallowed again, and grabbed his friend’s face tightly. 

“Listen to me, and listen to me good, Jon. We- We’ll get through this. We won’t d-die, in this hellhole, this fucking mess of a war. Fuck them, fuck this. And yes.” He felt his face scrunch up involuntarily, felt eyes of his own spring up. “I’ll go to dinner with you. Happily.”

Before Jon could respond, he instinctively kissed him, and their tears mingled together and Jon wrapped his arms around his best friend and hugged him tight. 


	11. Must Be a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> animalgrumps crackfic

It was very, very early in the morning when Jon awoke to the sound of rain hitting the windows. So early, in fact, that the room was dark. Not entirely pitch black—- but the kind of darkness that came when the lack of light during the wee hours was coupled with the unsettling deep grey from a heavy thunderstorm. A thought that crossed his mind at the very moment there was a peal of ear-shattering thunder, and a second later a flash of lightning so bright Jon had to blink several times afterwards to get the light imprinted on his retinas out of sight. He rolled over onto his back and breathed out, sighing heavily and closed his eyes again, trying to mentally block out the (now seemingly loud, although it was exactly the same volume) rain pattering- no,  _slamming_  itself against the windows. And the sliding doors. And the screen door a room away, and the goddamn walls of the house. He rolled over again, and slipped off the couch onto the towels and half of his blanket on the floor with a soft  _poomf!_. The blankets were so warm and engulfed Jon, and he sighed again, but this time in happiness. In fact, the rain had changed from the ridiculous pounding from before to a comfortable, reassuring drumming and he felt his ears perk as he snuggled deeper into the folds of the blankets and towels, drifting into the land of dreams and sleep once again.

_Wait._

_Ears.  
_

_Perk?  
_

_  
_Jon’s eyes opened slowly. The colors of the Grump Room had melted to mostly pale yellow colors, with some blue and he felt strange. He got up, or attempted to, only failing miserably and the feeble legs he hadn’t adjusted to collapsing beneath him as he fell forwards, head over heels, face first into more blankets.

There seemed to be even more blankets than before, too. Far too many. Or just.. Far too  _much_ , yes. That was right, too much blanket. Jon whined and felt his body arch naturally as he stretched his front legs (???!!) and his jaw as far or wide, respectively, as they could go. His spine eased, and he felt his mouth snap not shut but left his mouth slightly open, his tongue resting on his bottom row of teeth…

He stood up. A growing feeling of anxiety and nervousness began dawning on him and he felt his hair rise. Bristle. He could feel something else ( _a tail,_  his mind was telling him,  _it’s a fucking tail,_ ) standing straight up in the air as his eyes swiveled downwards towards where his outstretched arms would have been,  _should_  have been, and instead he was greeted with the sight of two legs and paws, furry appendages that had paw pads when he raised his right foreleg and turned it as much as he could to check if it was real.

 _This can’t be real, oh my god it can’t possibly be happening…_  Jon could feel his legs shaking as he arched his back again and covered his face with his hands- his paws, his  _forelegs_ , and it wasn’t his face it was  _a snout_  and he raised his paws a little bit and moved them downwards to feel where his majestic beard might have been only to feel scruffy fur that he was only just now realizing coated his entire body and if his hair-  _fur_ \- could stand any more on end it would be doing so now as he felt every single follicle and it all bristled at once as a wave across his body, over his back, down his legs and tingling off at the tip of his-

_T-tail…_

Jon started running. He started running in his awkward, slightly uncomfortable new body as fast as he could, trying to cycle his gangly limbs in the loping fashion that he had seen dogs do in real life but he didn’t move. The now-huge blanket (in the room he was beginning to realize wasn’t just big or different colored, but  _he_  was  _small_ ) only started bunching up behind him in a pile from his haphazard attempts at running on it, his tail wagging in large circles at sporadic speeds. Of course, he eventually ran out of blanket to run on and was taken aback at just the pace that he was going at. His ears (which were now located on the sides of his head) were flapping a little bit against his cheeks and he couldn’t help but smile at how fun it felt, running around the room. After running a full loop around what he now recognized as the couch he had been sleeping on, and the blankets he had used, he stopped, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his face stretched into a big canine smile.

_Canine. Is that me? Is that what I am? This has gotta be a fucking dream, although it is a pretty awesome one, I’ve gotta admit…_

_  
_He trotted over to the two TVs across from the couch where Arin had his consoles set up and stared at his reflection in the plasma screen.

_Shit._

A big doggy smile and a dog’s face was what he found. He realized his paws were resting on the ledge and his hindlegs were supporting him naturally, much like a real dog would have done, and his tail was down low as he took in the sight. The scruff he had felt that was supposed to be his beard, while certainly still the same fur that was on his body, was more concentrated and thick around his chin and a generous amount of thick wavy dark fur on his chest as well. From what he could judge, though, he was quite short, only just coming up to be tall enough to most of his face in the TV.

 _Hey, if this is a dream (because there is no physically possible way for me to become a dog, h-haha!), then fuck yeah! I can do whatever the hell I want! Oh man, Arin would be so mad if I, like, pissed all over his desk or something…_ He paused and the gears in his head were turning, his mouth closing and a serious, somewhat thoughtful look appeared on his face.

_I wonder what happened to him anyway._

He shook himself off (and grinned inside at the rather majestic feeling of his chest mane shaking with him) and ambled over to the door to the hallway. He wedged as much of his body in the tiny crack the door was open and tried to get it open to no success. He pawed at the door and it opened a little wider… and then stuck his nose in the gap and forcefully pushed it open. It hurt, and he winced, but he worked at it and eventually managed to slip through, rolls of puppy fat hindering the exit of his canine booty and he finally tumbled out, rolling head over heels onto the hardwood floor of the hall.

Jon felt excitement rising in him and his tail spun like a propeller out of control. He hopped towards the staircase (which did loom over him somewhat, but it wasn’t like it was intimidating or anything) and began working his way upwards, albeit slowly, scrambling over a step at a time and having to heave a little bit over the annoyingly large ledges over and over. The rather eager puppy grinned, targeting Arin and Suzy’s room door as a finish line, when there was another huge (far,  _far_  louder) what felt to be earth shatteringly loud peal of thunder, and for a single, solitary frame of horror the halls were illuminated and Jon couldn’t see again, but this time it was far worse than when he had woken up. An endless ringing in his ears terrified him and he stumbled over the last step of the staircase, his body lurching as his legs skidded over the polished floor and he slammed against the wall before teetering towards Arin’s room. He whimpered and pawed at the door, trying his best to weakly push it open, gathering the final reserves of his energy to scamper- although lope-with-a-limp would be a more accurate way to describe it- towards the bed in the center of the room, hurled himself as high as he could go and tried to use his meager nails/claws to grab onto the blanket. His hindlegs scrabbled desperately at the wood (click click click) and his eyes widened as something- someone? - pulled the cloth he was holding tightly onto up before he promptly passed out.

  
*

Arin blinked. Blinked again. And again. If he wasn’t mistaken, he had just pulled up a giant puppy/dog who looked uncannily like Jon, the same size as himself, in a bed that seemed to be absolutely gigantic, and Suzy seemed to be nowhere next to him.

He sat up in his bed.

_Okay. Alright. Logically, none of this makes any kind of fucking sense, at all. It’s like, fucking, I don’t know, a dream or something, I guess._

_  
_He felt his tail curl around his side and flick a little bit, and he pondered.

_Okay, so it seems like I’m a cat… And… maybe Jon is a dog? Is that Jon? Wasn’t he like, sleeping in the Grump Room or something…?_

__  
He stood up, almost tripped, picked himself up again and with his dignity intact, he turned to dramatically pull the covers on Suzy’s side backwards.  
  


A parakeet with rich, dark green feathers with a black and yellow streaked crest nestled comfortably in where the soft inverted hill of where Suzy’s human body had been laying.

Arin licked his lips and looked back to where he had pulled Jon up to on the bed.

_Hm. This is quite a conundrum._

Arin’s ears perked. He heard something. It was close.

_No. Wait. That’s Jon snoring. The dog. Jon. Whatever._

_  
_His nose twitched. Smelt something. His head whipped back the other way and eyed the peacefully sleeping bird.

_Annnd… Suzy smells delicious._

_  
_Arin sighed and knelt, licking Jon’s ear briefly before straightening his posture and peered over the edge of their bed.

With a rather agile leap, Arin jumped down off the bed and landed on the wooden flooring with no more sound than his softly padded feet cushioning his rather impressive jumping skills, for someone who had just woken up as a cat. 

He slipped through the ajar door and made a lazy attempt to close it as he went out, his body curling around the door as he exited and the tip of his tail hooking around the edge and pulling it about a centimeter before he gave up, the white patch of his sandy tail sliding out of visibility from inside the room. 

Arin strolled leisurely down the hallway, taking in the sight of everything being far larger than he was used to, being cat-sized and all. Then he remembered Barry was crashing at his place as well, being a two-person package with Jon after all, he figured why not have the whole gang over. Barry had gotten the spare room… And the night was silent, save for the rain that had quietened down. 

_Must be sleeping._

_  
_The sandy colored cat ambled to the closed door and- just for shits and giggles, he said- put his ear up against the door. Just for kicks.

There was only silence for a few minutes, and Arin assumed that nothing was out of the ordinary and began to make his way towards the kitchen when his sensitive ears caught wind of a horrible high pitched screeching noise. 

*

Barry pounded his tiny paws on his bed (tapped would be a better word) and screamed. Becoming a mouse was a cruel, cruel joke. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sort of crackfic where jon becomes a slimey slime monster thing

The newest update of the Occulus Rift had had Jon on the edge of his seat for weeks. Rumor had it that it was going to include incredibly realistic sense of touch- something that no other virtual reality console had been able to even come close to achieving. Of course, there  _were_  no other virtual reality consoles like the Rift anyway, nor were there any as widely celebrated and marketed as it was.  _Rightly so,_  Jon chuckled to himself, recalling fondly the countless times he and Arin had been playing a game and either one of them had gone,“This game would be great with the Occulus Rift,”. Again, rightly so, as the console had surpassed his expectations by miles, incorporating four of the five senses beyond simply a 3D environment- sight, sound, smell, even taste (though this was something that Jon felt truly needed to be improved, the flavor of chicken in any game left very much to be desired). All but the most key sense for a true immersive experience- to touch, to feel.  _  
_

Jon hadn’t read much into the science himself- lots of techy lingo, and he got bored fast- but it was something about brainwaves and hitting the parts of his brain that were wired to his pain receptors. Without actually enduring any  _pain_ , of course. He slipped the Rift snugly onto his head, the cushioning padding the inside of the headgear doing its job as he lay down on his bed, his eyes seeing nothing but darkness. And then, the now familiar startup screen that enveloped the entirety of his vision. His own virtual being, a mockup version of himself popped into existence before him, and he felt the lurching experience that was slipping into his avatar’s body. He raised a hand in the game, and looked at his virtual palm. Photorealistic, but he somehow still felt his whole body had an air of lightness to it, one that was probably muted by the earth’s gravity, or hell, just life in general.

He breathed deep, and pulled up the menu screen. Some ads for some new games that were going to be released, but he wasn’t particularly interested in those. No, what Jon was interested in was the bouncing “1!“ icon that indicated a message. Or a gifted game, as it was in this case.

"An RPG, huh?” Jon mused to himself aloud.

He pulled open the game window, and created his world. It began.

—-

Jon popped into existence, a stylized version of his own avatar (though in medieval casual, as it were) hitting the dark floor of what appeared to be a dungeon. At least that was what he assumed, seeing preexisting wood torches uniform on the stone brick walls. The fire seemed so real, and he could feel the warmth. Somewhat pleasant from the (he had to keep reminding himself it was all virtual) dampness of the dungeon, and he reached out to touch the flames, only to jerk his hand backwards with a yelp of slight pain. He inspected the finger that had touched the virtual flames first- a bit of a char, but nothing he couldn’t shrug off.

 _Jesus fuckin’ christ, if something as little as that is realistic, what’s getting stabbed like?_ Jon shook his head and wiped his hand on his simple grey cloth shirt, picking himself up. The torches may have been uniform, but he was at a crossroads, and they acted as a guide. He decided to take the path with the smallest number of burnt out torches, the one straight ahead of him. It seemed to lead to a slightly brighter place, anyway.

With each step that Jon advanced, it came to his realization that the floor was mossy and annoyingly slippery, and he made the final meter by sliding with his feet planted as flat as they could be. The sudden light in the room was blinding, and when his eyesight returned to normal before him he saw something that he had seen in a lot of RPGs before- a slime monster. Except it wasn’t just a green or blue sprite on the screen, it was (or at least felt like, anyway) a true oozing mass of uncomfortably wet half solid half liquid. Also, it was green. Sort of a rich green, though. Like, green grass, green. Rainforest green? He didn’t know, and didn’t much care. The pretty colors were Arin’s department, the arty farter that he was. It was almost hypnotic, the way the lovely rich green slime oozed out the cracks in the wall, like a waterfall but in slow motion? And a lot thicker, of course.

He was entranced. The slime kept coming, endlessly pouring out of every crack in the bricks, and it was only when the growing pool of it around him coated his feet and sunk into his boots he took notice. He wasn’t particularly alarmed, however- slime monsters, in the history of RPGs, had always been the first monster, and simple to defeat, in his experience, so he made himself comfortable and enjoyed the rather odd- but pleasurable- feeling of slowly being coated in slime from the feet up.

 _I can take it easy. It’ll be like, one punch and it’ll just go_ pop _and I’ll be good. So whatever._

He felt lulled, calm. It was a strange experience, and as the stuff rose, he caught his eyes closing. A dangerous sign,  _it’s a trap_ , he kept thinking urgently to himself, but the thoughts were dulled and he found himself lost to the boughs of anesthesia-induced sleep.

—-

His eyes opened slowly-  _way too slowly-_  and his vision was tinged with green. No, not tinged. Just green. Pure green. He realized he couldn’t breathe, either, and felt himself jerk awake at the realization.

 _I’m trapped, oh shit, oh god, please get me out, I actually can’t breathe_ -

But that was when he felt it. He could feel it, the gentle pulsing that was the slime he was in and he didn’t need to breathe anymore. He didn’t pass out, exactly, but he could feel his own consciousness slipping away as the only thing he could focus on was the green, the thick rich luscious green, and the soft pulse that he could feel everywhere on his body.  _Everywhere_. It was warm. Warmer than some places than others, if his body was any indication.

Nicole had told him about the spa she had gone to and about the full body scrubs and the massages and all that but Jon had never really been interested. Until this very moment, he didn’t believe in all that “releasing tension”, “relieving stress” business. It was like the stuff fucking sunk into his skin, did some new age shit, “became one with him” or whatever and he just  _felt at ease_. He could feel everything, and he could feel nothing. He could feel every hair on his body rise on end and he could feel himself  _becoming_  the gel. Stupid of him to think, of course, as he could overpower it at any time, but god-fuckin’ damn, it felt nice. He could feel the stuff seep into him and work its way through his body through his mouth and whatever and he knew he should have been screaming and yelling and trying to get out but he just didn’t care. It really was a fuckin’ “zen” experience and it was like he was being replaced by the jelly-like substance and he felt so out of place, and Jon willed it to go faster now because he  _needed_ -

_Hot. Too hot._

The pleasant warmth had grown to a searing heat, and sweet merciful god did it ever burn. It had started out nice, sensual, even, at the lower part of his body, but it had become too much. Dimly, he was aware that he was terrified, but his thoughts had been overwhelmed and he felt the heat growing into a ball and rising into his chest and it just got bigger and bigger and by instinct he just  _knew_ he was going to die.

And he did. Jon felt himself melt away, felt his memories and his own being simply slip away like a butterfly from his grasp, yet at the same time experienced physical pain which was also liberating. The building pressure he had never noticed was there was gone.

*****

Unbeknownst to Jon, though, the “slime monster” had been blown to pieces, chunks of the mass sliding down the walls with a sickening  _shloop_. At the center, was another, a newer, a smaller yet tougher-looking creature.

Jon’s vision cleared (although tinged green on the sides) and he straightened his body- or what was left of it, anyway. He raised his hand close to his face and inspected it. It was a barely shaped hand, dripping with goo. A small menu in the top right corner of his peripheral vision showed his health bar and his… jaw strength?

“Awwww shit, this game let’s me play as the bad guy? Fuckin’-A!”

Jon raised his fist in the air (albeit slowly).

“Ffffuck yeah!


End file.
